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I've been thinking for awhile about beer knowledge and its importance. It's something that started going around my mind ever since I drank that Otley 08. I had almost forgotten about it until 2D2dspuma and Beervana somehow dealt with the subject a few weeks ago.

The question I have now is not only whether it is important to know about beer in order to be able to appreciate and enjoy all its diversity, but also whether all this thing about beer knowledge isn't a bit overrated when it comes to the experience of the consumer.

A bit over two years ago, I helped the then Chef at Celeste to put together a beer dinner. They guy drawn the basic outline of the 7 course menu and, based on that, I brought a bunch of beers from which we would choose the ones that would pair with each of the courses.

The remarkable thing was that, despite his relationship with beer being that of a casual consumer, the Chef had no problem to appreciate the, sometimes nuanced, differences of the beers …

In an interview with Brooklyn Magazine, where he mostly talks about the 25th anniversary of his brewery, Garret Oliver, when asked about the "craft vs crafty" controversy, answers with the following:“My outlook on it is somewhat philosophical. Am I annoyed? Yes. It’s very annoying to see people who are not you walking around dressed as you and claiming to be you, essentially, and using the advantages they have to try to get people to think, “beer is beer, it’s all the same,” etc. What I say to people is, take the big breweries, and anyone, anyone in the room I’m in, sometimes hundreds of people, can you name the brewmaster? Anyone got a name? No, there is no name. There’s no name. There’s nothing but money. And money moves, and this liquid moves around the world, and there’s nothing but money. If you want to understand what it’s about, it’s about money. And we are about something else.”
Let's not discuss the "craft vs crafty" thing, because by now it should be…